Lotus Magazine was a pop cultural blip, a publication that catered to a niche of a subculture. Independently published from 1996 – 2002, Lotus served the West Coast's underground rave community. It was a free magazine, half electronica rag, half semi-spiritual/environmentalist youth outreach project. This online archive presents a sliver of the material published in the magazine during its six years of bi-monthly publication. Some of the content is still relevant, and some of it's just silly. All of it's very, very earnest. Enjoy! – Letters to the Editor, Fall 1999
Dear Lotus,
The beauty of 500-15,000 ravers of all ages, genders, and races in one area enjoying the music we all love. Raves in the desert, mountains, and cities. Beautiful props, lasers, and people. Keep your eyes and head up, because if you look down all you see is TRASH!
Frequently attending raves and being a promoter myself, I am concerned about the way people treat venues, parking lots, and surrounding neighborhoods. PLURespect for Mother Nature and people's property.
It's not just the dancers' fault. The flyer situation is out of control. It comes down to the promoters and the people who hand flyers out. Does everybody need 20 of the same flyer? Here's an idea: instead of pushing flyers into everyone's hands or putting them all over their cars, try just standing there and holding the flyers. If people want one, they'll take it. A lot less mess, less spent on the promotional costs--but more importantly, a better image for our community. Please use the trash cans--they're there for a reason. Do your part.
-Larry Harris Jr., Good-E-Records, Santa Monica, CA
Wait, use what trash cans? All too frequently the messes at large dance events are caused by an inadequate number of trash containers both inside and outside the venue. And as long as we're talking about trash, water bottles take up a HUGE amount of space in landfills and could easily be recycled at parties. Promoters? Who wants to rise to the challenge of having recycling at events?
To the wonderful Lotus writers,
I am a 17-year-old raver wannabe in suburban Dallas. I read Lotus religiously, I listen to electronic music almost exclusively, and I love dancing in my room. This sounds childish, but I asked my parents if I could go to a rave, and they brought up the 20/20 and 60 minutes specials on how raves are nothing more than warehouses packed tight with sweaty teenagers drugged up on ecstasy and acid. I said that I feel very strongly about drug use and I would be one of those--or the only one--who are there solely for the music. Of course they said no, and since I want my parents to trust me and I want to be a moral person, I have never been to a rave. But after speaking with friends and reading mags like Mixer and Urb, I started thinking that raves were more about drugs and less about the music.
I was definitely surprised and taken aback at your article, "The Urban Shaman's Reminder" in i22. If you don't condone drug use, why then do you educate people on their use and potential for "telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation"?
-Christian raver-at-heart, Dallas, TX
Thanks so much for writing. First, we want to address your concerns about the "Urban Shaman's Reminder" in issue 22. We feel that there's a HUGE difference between education and advocacy. We deeply respect and applaud your decision not to use drugs. However, there are others who have made different choices, and it's important that those people not be left uneducated just because you or I disagree with their decision. It really comes down to a safety issue...It's incredibly important that everyone learn how to care for themselves, and that includes those who chose to use drugs. As for your issues with your parents, we urge you to read our interview with Rev. James Conn on page 36. He specifically addresses ways for younger dancers to speak to their parents about raves. Heck, let your folks read the article too. Good luck, and we hope that we'll see you soon on the dance floor!
Dear Lotus,
Every day our community is growing larger and larger, with more people attending raves and ingesting tons of substances (both legal and illegal). As if there wasn't enough crackdown on raves from the law, the rising number of overdoses is feeding the police and media with more ammunition. How do you convince kids that are so caught up in the fact that the feel good that they are really harming their bodies and putting themselves (not to mention others) at risk?
The problem is, most people don't want to hear that. They chose to ignore the facts and consequences and hurt our community by taking those risks. It does hurt our community, though, and that's why people should educate each other on what is going on. When people don't care who they're buying from or what they're taking as long as they get high enough to enjoy themselves you run into serious problems. More fake drugs start circulating and more overdoses occur, shutting down parties and even causing tragic deaths.
So that's why I want to give some recognition to a group up here in San Francisco called DanceSafe. They are a non-profit organization designed to inform ravers and others about drug use and smart behavior. Their webpage can be found at http://www.harmreduction.net/dancesafe and contains information about many drugs, as well as extensive information on how E effects the brain and a section where pills have been tested for impurities. Think you know what you're taking? Why not find out.
Another positive thing about this group is that they go out to raves and set up information booths where people can come and ask questions, pick up informative literature and have pills tested. They also pass out condoms and earplugs to cover all the bases of staying healthy and safe at parties.
I'm really happy to see someone starting to educate people on what they are doing, and offer important information to someone who might not know better. You can't really stop anyone from behaving destructively, but if we can teach kids what choices they are making, it will benefit the community as a whole. Already, some pills DanceSafe tested were found to be fake and after a report was posted word got around. This isn't going to stop anyone from taking drugs, but it hopefully will hinder the selling of fake drugs and keep overdoses to a small minimum.
Maybe in the future other communities can work with DanceSafe to spread the booths all over, and make raves a little bit safer. For now, though, I recommend everyone check out this website because you will definitely learn some new facts and perhaps gain a better insight to what you are doing. Lots of congratulations to DanceSafe on helping to make our community that much better.
Everyone take care of themselves and each one teach one...
-Patrice Speed, San Francisco, CA
Thanks for the information, Patrice! Check out David Center's article "Safety Dance" on page 20 for information about DanceSafe, as well as other groups that are working to education our community.
Dear Lotus,
Before I had ever attended a rave, I would walk down the street and see "ravers" looking really crazy and funky--Enormous pants, lots of colors, silly toys in tow. They seemed so unique! Then I started going to raves and realized that while ravers look unique compared to "normal people," we all tend to dress alike! It gets kind of old--walking through a crowd of people all dressed in the same "unique" way. How are you supposed to find anyone in a crowd when we all look alike?
I guess I'm just writing to say that I wish that we could all be as unique as we pretend to be. A room full of people wearing various "Raver Uniforms" isn't nearly as much fun as a room full of people each dressed in their own special way.
-Q. Ver, Portland, OR
It's really sad to see that a culture once built around unique expressions has become a scene with its own "uniform." We encourage each of our readers to take the Lotus Challenge: think for yourself and create your own look. Don't buy someone else's version of your appearance or personality. For what it's worth, we've stopped running a fashion spread for just this reason. We don't want readers to feel that there's some way they should look to be a dancer. Dancers come in all shapes and sizes, ages, races, and clothes. Diversity is the key to our community's evolution.